Originally Posted by
MSYtoJFKagain
Sorry to bump this thread but I'm going to be in Japan next winter and wanted to find a kashikiri somewhere north of Tokyo to spend the better part of a day at. My SO will be doing her Disney Tokyo experience which I am not interested in so I have a free day. I'll have a JR Rail Pass and I'm a huge train enthusiast. I was thinking I would take a train to Shinjuku and ride the rails up north, relax at an onsen for a few hours and have lunch, then ride back and meet her at our hotel. Any ideas? We are already planning on being in Hakodate/Sapporo for a few days and down in Kyoto/Osaka for a few days so I was hoping to see more of Japan.
Kashikiri (private onsen tub you can rent for yourself) is usually only for 30-60min. So when you say you want to relax in an onsen for a few hours, I'm not sure that you'd be able to find a place that would suit your needs. I suppose one could rent out a kashikiri bath over multiple time slots, but then you wouldn't want to do that as kashikiri bath is usually just a single small well/bath and you're not going to want to spend that much time anyways.
Of course you can instead opt for day-onsen package at a hotel/ryokan that gives you access to communal onsen facilities with a variety of baths (and such place may also have an option to include 30-60min use of kashikiri bath for additional fees). Or I think there are some hotels that offer day-use of their guestrooms with private en-suite onsen.